DudeMyDadOwnsADealership wrote:Speaking of your fondness of DoA, what's your take on the newest addition to the Walkyverse, Raidah? Please go into detail.

Hahaha, is this a test?

(It's my understanding that the setting of Dumbing of Age is known as "the Dumbiverse," as distinguished from the shared universe of David Willis' other strips, the Walkyverse. But I'll answer the question in the spirit it was probably intended.)

Raidah has tried my patience for most of her existence, though her last scene was enjoyable enough that I'm willing to see her again. It's certainly true that she's better than the people she hangs out with, but that raises the question of why she does hang out with them. Her attempts to improve on their behavior are minor and halfhearted, and that biases me toward Sarah's version of the events that caused the rift between them.

David may well be pulling the old "not so bad once you get to know them" trick, which certainly seems to be what he's done with Sarah and Ruth. Both of them began their run in DoA seeming like almost aggressively unsympathetic figures, Sarah angry at the world and antisocial, Ruth downright cruel, but David's revealed more complex dimensions to them in due time.

So while I currently find Raidah an annoying blame-shifter whose low standards for companionship, and denial of her own irresponsibility, have turned her against the best person she knew, it's possible that David's got a story up his sleeve which will present the character, and her past and future, in a new light. No way to be sure, though. The title of the strip makes it clear that not everyone in it is really going to grow up.

3. Could you give us a thumbnail of Lisa and Steven's relationship, and what Lisa would learn at the end of these relationships?

1. Part of Lisa's growing-up process is learning to use her happy-go-luckiness a little more judiciously. The Holocaust and similarly huge bad events are fascinating to her, but she hasn't yet learned the best way to express herself about them, which means that further mentions would likewise be unfortunate.

2. I think it's most likely that Jade would've finally pushed the thrill-seeking farther and faster than Lisa would consider safe.

3. The contrast between Jade and Steven's simple-- too little control versus too much. Steven would have projected a lot of the good qualities of control: emotional stability, overall reliability, employability... and only gradually shown himself to be more of a liability to Lisa than an asset: "getting nervous" about her life outside of him, making decisions for them both. Nothing too obvious, the kind of thing smart women can lie to themselves about. I toyed with the idea that both Sara and Lisa would find themselves with controlling partners at some point, which would isolate them from each other, and yet the bond between them, and the perspective that bond brings, would be their only hope of digging themselves out of such a toxic relationship before it cost years of their lives.

Will Sara live together with Lisa throughout their college years? (IINM college students in America get to live outside the campus dorm after some set of time?)

Also, if the strip were to be continued, would Sara and Lisa create another close knit circle like the Aggies or would they be more...loose, platonically?If they do make another circle, who would be the members?

Trefle wrote:Will Sara live together with Lisa throughout their college years? (IINM college students in America get to live outside the campus dorm after some set of time?)

Also, if the strip were to be continued, would Sara and Lisa create another close knit circle like the Aggies or would they be more...loose, platonically?If they do make another circle, who would be the members?

Sara and Lisa will probably part ways after sophomore year: I expect Sara to try cohabiting with someone, non-platonically, junior year, and crawling back into the system a semester later, at which point Lisa will have found a new roommate. But they'll be close throughout college. Mmmaybe room together once more as seniors if neither of them are attached.

I think they'd probably gather a fairly close-knit circle eventually. You can't spend that much time together and have a balanced social life unless you're doing it as part of a larger group.

Alice Macher wrote:I would be very proud to have a daughter like Lisa. And who's to say being the Masked Memer is her only job?

(Sorry, T, that was a rhetorical question. I know.)

If it isn't, being MASKED is pretty much required, eh?

The notes of this paradoxalist do not end here, however. He could not refrain from going on with them, but it seems to us that we may stop here. - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (trans. C. Garnett)

Bet her parents were sooooo proud. Hope being the Masked Meme'er pays the rent.

Eh, it's not the least monetizable major. If you do it with some eye toward employment, it can prepare you for a career in marketing or web design, or you can just jump into a seemingly unrelated field (communication skills help in many careers). I know a couple of people who've done that.